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August 10, 2018 CapitalPress.com 3 Gala pushes Red Delicious out of top volume spot By DAN WHEAT Washington fresh apple forecast Capital Press (Millions of 40-pound boxes) WENATCHEE, Wash. — Red Delicious, Washington’s top apple in volume for 83 years, is predicted to fall to second place behind Gala in the 2018 harvest. Honeycrisp is expected to keep increasing and organics make a big jump in the 2018 crop forecast compiled Aug. 1 and released Aug. 7 by the Washington State Tree Fruit Association. The fresh, versus pro- cessing, crop is estimated at 131 million, 40-pound box- es, down 2 percent from the 2017 crop expected to finish sales in the next two months at 134 million. The record was 143.6 million in 2014. Red Delicious is forecast at 28.3 million boxes, down 14.7 percent from the 33.2 million of 2017. Gala is ex- pected to be 31.7 million, up 3.3 percent from 30.7 mil- lion. “It’s two weaker variet- ies passing each other. The scuttlebutt on Gala is not pos- itive. It’s like 10 years ago when Reds were being talked down,” said Desmond O’Ro- Variety Red Delicious Gala Fuji Granny Honeycrisp Others † Golden Delicious Cripps Pink Ambrosia Braeburn Jonagold Total Dan Wheat/Capital Press Apples in an East Wenatchee, Wash., orchard on Aug. 6, several weeks out from harvest. urke, world apple market an- alyst and retired Washington State University agricultural economist. Marketers have been desir- ing fewer Reds for years and more proprietary varieties in small volumes for better re- turns. However, the down side to a big Reds decline is that it’s a big part of exports, O’Ro- urke said. “That’s almost a 5 mil- lion-box drop in Reds. It will drive up prices and then with Percent 2017* 2018** 33.19 30.69 17.12 19.24 11.43 6.72 7 5.28 1.65 1.04 0.45 133.79 28.3 31.7 17.75 17 14.15 7.25 6.35 6 1.35 0.78 0.4 131.03 Source: Washington State Tree Fruit Association the tariffs, it could be a mess,” he said. How badly an anticipated 20 percent tariff in Mexico and 50 percent tariff in China af- fect those markets in the com- ing season is a big concern, he said. Exports have been good, particularly in India, where 8 million boxes of Washington apples have sold this season compared to 4.7 million the year before, he said. That was caused by India banning Chi- By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI Capital Press Capital Press USDA Risk Management Agency on Wednesday an- nounced a new insurance plan for dairy producers that in- sures against unexpected de- clines in quarterly milk sales. Sign-ups for the new Dairy Revenue Protection plan — Dairy-RP — begins Oct. 9, with the first available cover- age starting the first quarter of 2019. Dairy-RP was developed by the American Farm Bureau Federation, American Farm Bureau Insurance Services and other collaborators and was approved by the Federal Crop Insurance Corp., John Newton, AFBF director of market intelligence told Capi- tal Press in a recent interview. The insurance plan is dif- ferent from other USDA risk Capital Press graphic nese apples, he said. Mexico has been good at 12.2 million. Total exports are 41.5 million for the season, ending up 4 million and 31 percent of the crop. Reds averaged $16 per box over the last year, very margin- al for profits and Gala was also marginal at $20 to $21, he said. Honeycrisp averaged $50, which is good but not as good as a few years ago as it increas- es in volume. “The golden egg is losing By DON JENKINS Capital Press Mateusz Perkowski/Capital Press Scott Gottlieb, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Adminis- tration, speaks with farmers about the Food Safety Modernization Act during a Tuesday stop near Bend, Ore. quences, Gottlieb said. As the FDA increasing- ly scrutinizes U.S. farmers, there’s a danger that foreign produce suppliers will sidestep regulations due to lax enforce- ment by overseas authorities, said Kay Riley, general man- ager of the Snake River Pro- duce Co. in Nyssa, Ore. That’s particularly true since FSMA’s “foreign suppli- er verification” requirements fall heavily on importers who can close their doors and face little accountability, Riley said. “We’re relying on them to be the police,” he said. “We want to make sure the playing field is level.” Gottlieb said he was sen- sitive to such criticism but would “challenge that notion” that foreign suppliers will skirt regulations. The FDA works coopera- tively with foreign regulators and can conduct foreign in- spections, among other tools available to the agency, he said. As state regulators take over more FSMA inspec- tions, the agency will devote more resources to ensuring that foreign suppliers com- ply with rules — particular- ly those companies that are flagged as unreliable, Gott- lieb said. programs for dairy, which fo- cus on income over the cost of feed and don’t directly man- age revenue risk. It provides insurance for the difference between the final revenue guarantee selected by produc- ers and actual milk revenue if prices fall. It will function similar to crop revenue protection policies in that the revenue guarantee would be based on futures prices, expected pro- duction and market-implied risks, Newton said. A dairy producer can de- cide the value of milk protect- ed either based on a combi- nation of Class III and Class IV milk prices or component milk prices for butterfat, pro- tein and other solids. He would choose the amount of milk production to cover, the level of reve- nue coverage to insure (from Grass Expertise. LET’S TALK! Over 40 Years Experience NEED GROUND COVER QUICKLY? PLANT RYEGRASS! FASTEST THING ON ROOTS! Seedsman 32-3/108 Alan Greenway, A researcher’s close en- counter last month with a wolf in north-central Wash- ington was a rare event, but ranchers say they occasion- ally see and more often hear barking wolves, an experi- ence one rancher described as “eerie.” Cattle Producers of Wash- ington President Scott Niel- sen said he suspects wolf encounters have gone unre- ported because people don’t want to face public scrutiny. “I think they would be doing their community a ser- vice if they were to face it,” Nielsen said Friday. “Wolves are a public safety issue. It’s an animal that is opportunis- tic and eats meat.” Wildlife biologists have described the July 12 incident in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest as unusu- al, yet also expected from a pack protecting pups. The U.S. Forest Service research- er said she tried to leave when she came face-to-face with a wolf, but the howl- ing animal cut her off. She climbed a tree and called for help using a satellite phone. She was swiftly rescued by a state Department of Natural Resources helicopter crew, though state wildlife biologists initially opposed disturbing the pack with a chopper, preferring to coor- dinate a ground rescue that could have taken two to three hours. The head of Conservation Northwest’s wolf program, Jay Shepherd, said wolf sightings are rare, but the in- cident highlights the need to be on-guard when venturing into wolf territory. Knowl- edge about wolf behavior can help, he said. “If you haven’t been around wolves, they can scare the hell out of you, and if you’ve been around wolves, they can scare the hell out of you,” he said. “Don’t act like their natural prey,” he advised. “I would not try to outrun a wolf. I would stand my ground.” The day after the rescue, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice biologist Gregg Kurz and state biologist Ben Maletzke found evidence the Forest Service employee had unknowingly walked into the pack’s rendezvous site, where adult wolves stash pups for the summer. Kurz said they found rabbit en- trails, small paw prints and little teeth marks on a tin can. They picked up strong signals from radio collars worn by two wolves and tried to flush the wolves into the open. “We purposely tried to elicit a reaction because this behavior seemed really odd to us. So we walked toward them and pressured them to see if we could get them to respond in a similar manner to us, and that did not hap- pen,” Kurz told Okanogan County commissioners in a meeting to review the inci- dent. “We know we were well within 100 yards of where they were and just kept push- ing and pushing and push- ing. They paralleled us and then headed up over the hill silently. We never heard a peep, never saw them. “Based on that, we felt it was defensive behavior and not aggressive behavior,” Kurz said. “We determined it was a rendezvous site, and they were just trying to warn that person away from the area and escort her into the distance.” No human has been at- tacked by wolves in Wash- ington, Oregon, Idaho, Wy- oming or Montana since the animals were reintroduced into Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in 1995, according to the Ore- gon Department of Fish and Wildlife website. Wolves mauled a woman to death in Alaska in 2010, according to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. A 22-year- old man was found partially consumed by predators in 2005 in Saskatchewan, Can- ada. A University of Calgary biology professor said he had no doubt wolves killed the man. Stevens County rancher Arron Scotten said the first time he heard wolves near him was in 2016 when he came upon a rendezvous site. “Apparently, I just got too close and next thing I know I was getting barked at some- thing fierce,” he said. “It was eerie.” Stevens County rancher Rocky Mullen said he re- cently saw three wolves on a Sunday morning circling about a dozen cows near his home. The wolves left as he approached. “They’re thick,” he said. “We used to not think any- thing of going down to the creek to fish without taking a pistol, but now we do.” Authorities declined to prosecute a man in southeast Washington in 2015 who said he shot a wolf from the front porch of his cabin to protect his wife and dogs. A man in northeast Washington attested in 2014 that he was surrounded by a wolfpack. Weekly fieldwork report Item/description (Source: USDA, NASS; NOAA) • Days suitable for fieldwork (As of Aug. 5) • Topsoil moisture, surplus • Topsoil moisture, percent short • Subsoil moisture, surplus • Subsoil moisture, percent short • Precipitation probability (6-10 day outlook as of Aug. 7) GREENWAY SEEDS Caldwell, Idaho • Alan Greenway, Seedsman Cell: 298-259-9159 • MSG: 298-454-8342 70 percent to 95 percent) and which quarterly contracts he wants to cover. The expected revenue is based on futures prices for milk and dairy commodities and the amount of covered milk production elected by the dairy producer. The cov- ered milk production is in- dexed to the state or region where the dairy producer is located. or 18.9 million boxes. That’s a “substantial increase and we struggle with huge increases” if it can’t all be sold in the re- tail market, he said. Zeutenhorst said he thinks the crop is larger than 131 million boxes and would be even 3 to 5 percent larger yet without rampant fireblight this spring. The tree-killing disease is acerbated by extreme heat fol- lowed quickly by rain during bloom. “It’s been a horrible, hor- rible year for fireblight. Or- chards have been massively cut back and down,” Zeuten- horst said. Limbs and whole trees are cut to stop its spread. After three years of fruit sizes too large or small creat- ing marketing challenges, this year’s crop looks to be of nor- mal fruit size, he said. Large New York, Michigan and Pennsylvania crops will compete domestically in Oc- tober, but prices should hold better because of better quality this year, Zeutenhorst said. “Cherries are a bit of an indicator and we had a solid cherry year with sustained good quality,” he said. “We think apples will follow suit.” Wolf encounters rare, but not unknown in Washington Biologists try to flush out wolves USDA rolls out new dairy insurance plan By CAROL RYAN DUMAS -14.7 3.3 3.7 -11.6 23.8 7.9 -9.3 13.7 -18.1 - 25 -10.7 -2.1 *Close to final as of Aug. 1, 2018 **Forecast as of Aug. 1, 2018 † Mostly club or managed varieties proprietary to certain companies. NOTE: Totals may not equal 100 due to rounding. FDA chief reassures Oregon growers over FSMA concerns BEND, Ore. — Oregon fresh produce growers got some reassuring words from U.S. Food and Drug Admin- istration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb during a stop Tuesday near Bend, Ore. Implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act has loomed over the fresh produce industry since the law was signed by former Presi- dent Barack Obama more than seven years ago. The possibility of increased water testing and treatment, new federal on-farm inspec- tions and the uncertain over- sight of foreign competitors are just a few of the concerns raised by farmers. During a visit at the Bar- ley Beef feedlot outside Bend, Gottlieb acknowledged the agency is now venturing into some of the statute’s thornier regulatory territory. “The easy parts of the im- plementation of FSMA are done,” he said. “The issues we’re grappling with now are hard.” The law represents a criti- cal rethinking of how the U.S. deals with food safety, but the government doesn’t want to saddle the food industry with outsized unintended conse- change some of its gold,” O’Rourke said. Honeycrisp was forecast at 10.5 million boxes at this time last year. It will finish the year at 11.5 million and is forecast at 14.15 million for the new harvest. The average of all variet- ies was $20.71 per box in the first week of May and now is $22.71, a nice increase as vol- ume declines, he said. About 12.4 million boxes of the 2017 crop remained to be sold in the next two months. That’s easily doable at 2 mil- lion boxes per week, he said. But there probably won’t be much uptick in prices at the start of new crop sales, he said. Heavy volumes of Honeycrisp and Gala, the first varieties harvested, will “keep a lid on prices,” he said. Harvest began July 25 with early strains of Gala in Wallu- la, north of Walla Walla, and Gala harvest will increase in earnest next week, said Charles Zeutenhorst, general manager of First Fruits Marketing of Washington in Yakima. Harvest usually finishes in early November. Organics are expected to be 14 percent of the total crop Ore. Wash. Idaho Calif. 6.8 0 87% 0 85% 6.9 0 62% 0 51% 6.9 3% 68% 3% 59% 7 0 70% 0 70% Normal Normal Normal Normal
